


2.47 Billion

by Mycroffed



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Inspiration from Day of the Doctor, References to his time at the Academy, Story by the Doctor, The night he counted, Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 06:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13518873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mycroffed/pseuds/Mycroffed
Summary: Donna often asks if I am ever sad. She’ll look me straight in the eyes when she asks, forcing me to give her an honest reply.I’ll just smile and change the subject.So she keeps asking, over and over and over again. Well, Donna, here’s your answer. Here’s the story of the night I counted them all.





	2.47 Billion

**Author's Note:**

> This is the longest I've written in a long time. I enjoyed it. I'm planning on writing some more in the future.
> 
> Who knows, I might even finish some stories.
> 
> \----
> 
> The title is from the Day of the Doctor soundtrack by Murray Gold

Donna often asks if I am ever sad. She’ll look me straight in the eyes when she asks, forcing me to give her an honest reply.

 

I’ll just smile and change the subject.

 

So she keeps asking, over and over and over again. Well, Donna, here’s your answer. Here’s the story of the night I counted them all.

 

 

\--~--

 

 

After Bad Wolf Bay, after leaving Rose there, on her own – wait, did I ever tell you that story? I think I did, didn’t I? Well, it barely matters. I had just lost her and ~~I was about to burn the entire universe to get her back.~~ I needed to accept that. I was alone, this was before I bumped into Martha in that hospital, I was in my TARDIS and, even though she was doing everything she could to comfort me, she knew to give me some space.

 

I often wonder what events had brought me to the mindset where I was that night. Of course losing Rose played a big part in it, but that was merely the drop that made it all spill. I had learned by then that I wasn’t the only Time Lord left, that there was still at least one left, so I had hope. I believed that I could start again, even if that was just with that one person. I could explain what I had done, _why_ I had done it. ~~I hoped that they would forgive me.~~

I think that it was the spring cleaning I did earlier that day. Well, I called it spring cleaning, even though the planet I was orbiting at that point didn’t really have any seasons. Well, not the seasons the humans know. Either way, I had cleaned up my library a bit, sorted through the many, many books in my collection. Most of them were written by others, but I have dabbled in some literature myself. This documentation is proof of that. I had found a set of diaries of my time on Gallifrey.

 

And of course I had been stupid enough to open them.

 

I’m pretty sure that I had been sitting in the console room, or was it my own bedroom? I don’t really remember. I had grabbed the book about my time at the Academy, where I used to be Theta with Brax and Koschei, as well as many other fantastic friends, by my side. Oh, those were the days. I was young and reckless, especially reckless. But who could blame me? I was young, I barely knew what responsibility was or what to do with the few responsibilities that I had.

 

I had been reading about my time, thinking back to first loves and first losses, and how it never seemed to get any better. ~~Having your heart broken will always hurt, no matter how splintered it gets over time.~~ I thought back to Mortimus, Ushas, Magnes, the other members that formed our little group called the Deca. Those were the days.

 

Then, suddenly, a horrible thought popped up in my head.

 

_They were all dead now. All because of me._

 

That was when I closed the book and pushed it aside, not feeling the need to read any more if it was only going to lead to those sorts of things. You see, Donna, you often only see the happy, go-lucky traveller with a hint of sadness in his eyes, but you never see the deep dark, lurking underneath. Now, I wasn’t particularly eager to go back to feelings like that, so I abandoned my desk – _that_ was it, I had been sitting in my office while I had been reading it! – and made my way to the swimming pool. If anything, that would distract me from my line of thought.

 

I undressed – there was no need to put on any swimwear, I was alone at the time – and dived in.

 

The problem with swimming is that your body might be busy, but your mind isn’t. So after about ~~ten~~ two laps, I found my mind going back to that earlier thought.

 

_Well, there were at least three children on Gallifrey that night when I killed them all. Magnes sent me a letter with their picture once._

I immediately swam to the side, got out of the pool and dried myself with a towel. If swimming wasn’t going to help, then I would find something else to steer me away from this subject. Maybe some studying or translating would help. I had found a book in Gallifreyan on the subject of taking care of a Time Machine, that would keep me busy for a while.

 

Or so I thought.

 

Three pages in, another thought popped up. _Mortimus mentioned wanting to have kids as well. Five, he had always said. That makes at least eight children that I killed._ The book was quickly abandoned after that, and another distraction was sought. But the thoughts kept coming. Over and over again, one after another.

 

 _Brax had two little ones once, who then grew and had about five children of their own. Our neighbours were grandparents. All my classmates, all twenty of them. Susan. Romanadvoratrelundar_ , _n_ _o_ , Romana. _She must have had children too. All of them dead._

When I could no longer push them away, I got up and grabbed a piece of paper. I started counting the ones I was sure of. First ten, then fifty, but soon hundred, two hundred, four hundred! For every child I wrote down, three more popped up in my head. ~~All of them family or friends.~~ I knew, however, that there were more, that that couldn’t be the end of that list. So I started to go over the politicians and their children, the soldiers, the leaders, everyone I could think of.

 

The number soon crossed a thousand, two thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand. I wanted to stop counting, why was I doing this to myself, why was I so curious? Three times I put down my pen, three times I picked it up again. When I had listed a billion children on tens of sheets of papers, I stopped.

 

Did it really matter if I went on to count? I wondered. Would it make a difference for anyone?

 

It was the closest I got to stopping.

 

_You killed them all, Doctor. You are not a good man, you aren’t worthy of the name._

I soon realised that it would make a difference for me, that I would feel better if I knew exactly how much sadness I had created, how many lives I’d have to save before I could even /begin/ to think my debt with the universe settled. Not that I would ever stop, I couldn’t. Who would I be if I sat idly by while others ached and suffered?

 

So I picked up my pen again and continued my calculations. And after this, I didn’t stop until I had the final number, staring at me from the middle of an empty piece of paper.

 

Two point four seven billion.

 

2.47 billion.

 

2,470,000,000.

 

That number was mindstaggeringly large that it almost seemed ridiculous. There couldn’t have been that many children on Gallifrey that night, could there? So I counted again, all from the beginning. I double checked, triple checked, then checked my calculations again, just to make sure that I hadn’t made a mistake. But no. Two point four seven children had died in one push of the button.

 

Four point nine four billion parents lost their kids. Nine point eight eight billion grandparents suddenly didn’t have grandchildren anymore.

 

And all of it was to blame on me.

 

So Donna, if you ever again ask if I am ever said, know that that evasion of an answer isn’t just an evasion of giving you the answer. It’s an admission of guilt.

 

\--~--

 

The Doctor shoved the diary away from himself. He was done telling this story, he had said everything that he had wanted to say to Donna.

 

Oh _Donna_. He should have told her when he had the chance.

 

He glanced at the door of his office, at the suit that was hanging there, ready to be worn by him. He sighed deeply. He needed to prepare for what today would bring, for seeing Donna again without actually seeing her. You see, Wilfred had died earlier that week. The Doctor had made an appearance during his last day, his smile so forced that Wilf had immediately known that it would be the last time he’d see the Doctor.

 

The next day, he had been dead.

 

Today was the funeral and, even though he didn’t want to go, he knew that he owed it to his friend, to his daughter and, most of all, to Donna herself. She might not remember him, but he would _never_ let her down, especially not in times like this.

 

He was going to hug her and her mother, even if it was only to allow himself to feel grief for the two point four seven billion, along with that human that shone just as bright as all of them.


End file.
